The present invention relates to a detection method used in a memory card adaptor and, more particularly, to a detection method used in an adaptor capable of inserting various kinds of memory cards. The detection method of the present invention mainly utilizes differences of response times, signals, and characteristics of various kinds of memory cards to various types of commands to make appropriate arrangements of detection order, thereby achieving the most efficient detection effect.
Recently, due to fast development of electronic-related industry, continual progress of semiconductor process, enhanced requirement of compact electronic products, and considerable research of various kinds of digital applications such as PDA, electronic dictionary, digital camera, digital camcorder, MP3 walkman, and information appliance, many storage systems capable of storing application software and graph and text data have been much appreciated. Commercially available storage systems, no matter hard disk drives or floppy disk drives, utilize magnetic material as the main medium. The access speed of data thereof will be reduced due to influence of mechanism control of the accurate read/write head, and data stored in the storage systems may easily be damaged because of external factors such temperature, humidity, and vibration, resulting in much trouble of the user.
In order to avoid the above drawbacks, various kinds of memory cards mainly using flash memory have been developed, which can apply to wider ranges of temperature and humidity, and will not be affected by vibration. Moreover, they have the advantages of quiet access of data and power saving. However, the individually developed memory cards have no consistent specification so that various kinds of products using memory cards have different specifications. The user thus needs to extra purchase peripheral equipments because of incompatible memory cards when he wants to buy different types of products.
Therefore, adaptors capable of inserting different memory cards have been developed for integrated usage of different types of memory cards. However, because of different number and positions of data I/O pins of various types of memory cards, the read/write modes thereof differ. A switching device of types of memory cards is thus required in the adaptor. R. O. C. Pat. No. 0,389,353 discloses an adapting memory card structure using SSFDC card to access data via CompactFlash card interface, wherein a 50-pin interface of CompactFlash card is used as a basic architecture, and a cassette slot is disposed at the bottom of the adapting memory card so that a solid state floppy disk card can be inserted thereinto. A terminal board comprising a plurality of terminals is disposed inside the adapting memory card. The terminal board can contact metallic conducting sheets of a memory card to read/write data of the memory card. Switching of different read/write modes of the two types of memory cards is achieved by using a switching device composed of a plurality of metallic conducting sheets. As shown in FIG. 1, a flash memory 18 and a controller 16 are disposed on a circuit board (not shown). A memory card 12 is inserted from outside. Basically, the controller 16 is connected with the two types of memory cards. The conducted path is selected by switching power source. When the memory card is not inserted, the power source of the controller 16 is connected with that of the flash memory 18. At this time, the flash memory 18 is used as a standard CompactFlash card. When the memory card 12 is inserted, the housing of the memory card 12 compresses metallic conducting sheets of a switch 14 to let the conductive state of the controller 16 with the flash memory 18 switches to the conductive state of the controller 16 with the memory card 12, hence facilitating access of data on the memory card.
However, the above structure of adaptor can only apply to switching between two fixed types of memory cards, and a mechanical switching device is needed. If an adaptor capable of using various kinds of memory cards is required, the structure of the switching device will be very complex, and the switching of read/write modes between different types of memory cards will be much difficult. The volume of the whole adaptor thus will increase inevitably, resulting in much inconvenience in use.
Accordingly, the present invention aims to propose a detection method of memory card without using a mechanical switching device so that the type of a memory card can be effectively and accurately detected, the detection effect can be enhanced, and the whole space can be saved.
The primary object of the present invention is to provide a detection method used in an adaptor capable of inserting various kinds of memory cards, wherein a control device on the adaptor is utilized to issue various types of commands, and await or receive response from memory cards to detect various types of memory cards.
The secondary object of the present invention is to provide a detection method of an adaptor capable of inserting various kinds of memory cards, wherein the control device thereof arranges in turn the detection order according to different response times of various types of memory cards to various kinds of commands, thereby enhancing the detection efficiency.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a detection method of an adaptor capable of inserting various kinds of memory cards, wherein the control device thereof can be used to issue various types of commands to identify the types of memory cards according to responsive information of memory cards.
The various objects and advantages of the present invention will be more readily understood from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the appended drawing, in which: